The new makeup of the Senate Energy Committee – including a diverse handful of Tea Party and potentially centrist Republicans – raises major questions about whether it’s possible to reach common ground on a key “clean energy” production mandate and other energy initiatives President Barack Obama has called for.

Five freshmen GOP senators have joined the panel, led by members of the Tea Party movement: Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Utah’s Mike Lee. A Democratic freshman, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is another new member and potential wild card on a panel that in the previous Congress proved more effective than most committees in hammering out deals across party lines.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) - who worked closely with Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) in 2009 to include a renewable power mandate in a broader energy package passed by the committee – left the Senate to become governor. Also gone from the panel is Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) - one of four Republicans that gave backing to the energy measure.

It is unclear whether Paul and Lee will veer farther to the right than the men they succeeded both on the panel and in the full Senate – Sens. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah).

Paul so far is at least keeping his powder dry on a “clean energy standard” that Obama highlighted in his State of the Union Tuesday night. Obama called for 80 percent of U.S. electricity to come from “clean energy” sources by 2035 – including traditional renewable sources like wind and solar but also natural gas and Republican favorites nuclear and “clean coal.”

“I need to see more about it frankly before I can comment on it,” Paul said Thursday. “Let’s think about it and look at the specific proposal.”

To be fair, even the top two members of the panel – Bingaman and ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) – are non-committal on the president’s call for such a standard.

“I don’t even know yet what clean energy standard even means,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who also supported the panel’s 2009 energy bill. “I find it’s best to understand the details before commenting.”

If Bingaman and Murkowski do end up trying to strike a deal on that and other energy items like in the past, it may take a while now that five of the 10 Republicans on the panel are new.

“It will take some time to build working relationships with them on various energy issues and it is hard to imagine a scenario in which Senator Murkowski gets too far ahead of her Republican colleagues,” said Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Lee – who was a successful far right challenger to Bennett in the Republican primary – has so far emphasized the need to expand a diverse set of energy sources, including many of those that would be included in a clean energy standard. But like Paul it is unclear whether he would back a specific federal production mandate of any sort or vote in favor of any federal energy subsidies.

A Lee spokeswoman before the committee roster was announced said in an email that he “plans to focus on freeing up federal lands for economic uses which will create jobs, encourage economic growth and lead the U.S. towards energy independence. The Senator also plans to work towards creating greater certainty for regulations and bringing the lands under more local control.”

Sen. Jim DeMint – the leader of the Senate Tea Party movement who helped elect Paul and Lee into office – told POLITICO that Obama overall “is trying to pick winners and losers.”

While DeMint was not referring specifically to the idea Obama talked about Tuesday night, that mantra could be used by fellow Tea Partiers and more conventional Republicans. “We need some standards at the federal level but we’ve gone too far and the economy is being hurt and jobs are being hurt,” he said. Fellow Tea Party members “are for a clean environment but they want to do it rationally.”

The other three new Republicans on the panel – Rob Portman (Ohio), Dan Coats (Ind.) and John Hoeven (N.D.) – all are familiar faces in their states and have held elective office before on either a federal or state level.

Portman was seen as a moderate Republican during his tenure in the House and could be a new centrist voice, although he veered to the right during his campaign last fall. A Portman spokesman said in an email that he wanted to be on the energy panel “because of the potential OH jobs tied to commonsense energy legislation that would spur growth in nuclear energy … clean coal, and natural gas production.” Coats is a Midwesterner who likes nuclear power and exploring proven energy resources.

On the other side of the aisle, Manchin could join Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) as a second Democrat who is a thorn in the side of Bingaman.

Manchin ran away from the president’s energy platform during his special election campaign last year. He repeatedly blasted the cap-and-trade bill, going so far as to shoot a bullet through it during a campaign commercial, and has vowed to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to impose tighter Clean Water Act standards on mountaintop removal coal mining.

But now, with Obama endorsing carbon capture and storage coal plants as part of his “clean energy standard”, the party appears to be moving toward Manchin, at least on the energy side of the equation.

“We’re going to give them all the clean coal they need,” Manchin said following the State of the Union Address Tuesday.

Landrieu for her part is keeping an open mind on a clean energy standard.

“I don’t think the renewable portfolio standard the way it’s drafted now has a chance so we’re going to have to try a new approach,” she said.

Joshua Freed, who directs the clean energy program at the centrist Third Way, said the new makeup of the panel may make it a little more challenging to do something like a clean energy standard. “But certainly not insurmountable,” he said.

He points out that Hoeven’s state is heavy on wind energy, Paul’s represents coal and Portman has a moderate political background.

“The makeup of the committee in this Congress doesn’t really make it significantly more challenging to get it through committee than previous congresses,” he said. “This is an ambitious goal laid out by the president and it’s likely to remain ambitious.”

The other two new members of the committee are Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.), who could counter any dissent in their ranks from Manchin and Landrieu.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) - one of nine Democrats returning to the energy panel - said Wednesday that Bingaman is working on energy legislation that may resemble a broader package that the panel passed last Congress with bipartisan backing.

“He’s working on little tweaks to what we had before and waiting to see who’s on the committee, frankly, from the R side. That’s the big question,” she said.